


Back Again

by songofsunset



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen, M/M, POV Outsider, not actively shippy but KNOW THAT THE SHIP IS THERE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 16:44:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16044455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofsunset/pseuds/songofsunset
Summary: Emil's coworkers are surprised to see him back.





	Back Again

**Author's Note:**

> GOT MY KICKSTARTER BOOKS IN THE MAIL, IM HYPE
> 
> shoutout to the ssss discord for being enablers

It's the start of the Cleansing season, and the Cleansers are meeting up after their winter-long break, slowly filtering into a large wooden meeting house that somehow isn't on fire... yet. 

Groups form at bench-lined tables all through the hall, people with bags and coats and too many explosives to be strictly safe in a structure this wooden. 

Agnetha is sitting at a table off to the side, her coworker Gus resting his head on the table beside her. They'd been working together for a year or two now, and they made a decent team. Cleansers had high turnover, though, so she never got too attached. 

Lars, in charge of their little group, meanders back to them, having acquired a small pile of papers and timetables and forms. 

"Where's Emil?," asks Lars, checking a list. "He's the only one on our crew who isn't here yet."

Gus sits up, raising his eyebrows. "What, you mean he's _alive_? Wasn't he gonna go get eaten by trolls or something?"

Lars rolls his eyes. "He went on an expedition to the middle of nowhere, and he's fine. They only lost one crew member, and it wasn't him. They're getting some sort of recognition from the nordic council for it, I think. My uncle was talking about it." 

Agnetha raises her eyebrows. "Emil? Our wimpy screamy Emil?" 

Gus nods. "Right? That kid couldn't navigate his way out of a paper bag, much less-"

Lars glances up at something just over Agnetha's shoulder. "Oh, hi Emil!" 

Agnetha goes white and whirls around, only to see- the same crowd that has been milling around since Lars arrived. Agnetha glares at Lars, who smiles sweetly as Gus breaks into laughter. 

"Oh come ON!" Agnetha starts. "Did you really have to- ah." She blinks. 

"Look," says Lars, oblivious, "the ONE time you don't check, you know he's gonna walk right up and-"

"Hello," says Emil from directly behind Lars, hair as perfect as ever. "I do hope everyone has had a pleasant break."

Lars flails about a foot in the air as Gus cackles, and Agnetha smiles beatifically. "Never been better, Emil! Went home, saw my kids, made sweet sweet love to my husband-" 

"Ew," Lars says, and Gus makes a face. 

"-and now I'm back to set things on fire for another several months! How about you?"

Emil smiles as he sits down, shoving his bag under the bench, but it's not the smile his crew is used to. It seems- melancholy, almost. Composed.

"I suppose I had an eventful break as well."

Agnetha leans in with a grin. "I HEARD. Apparently you're some sort of cultured man of the world now, short stuff."

Lars frowns, shuffling his paperwork. "Leave him alone Agnetha. We don't need to bother him about this."

"No," says Gus. "I really do want to hear about this. Emil's an _expert_ now, right? We should consult him. Share your wisdom oh mighty Emil!"

Emil rolls his eyes, and Agnetha takes a moment to be surprised that Emil hasn't even gotten grumpy. Normally she and Gus would have him worked into a bit of a temper by now. 

"I mostly just blew things up and ran for my life," Emil says. "It wasn't THAT different from what we already do, except for the company."

"Oh?" asks Lars, who seems to have given in to curiosity. "Hows that?"

"Oh, we had someone from everywhere, basically. Let's see," Emil says, counting on his fingers. "Two Finns, a Norweigan, a Dane, and one Icelander who accidentally stowed away and ended up with us. And me, of course."

Agnetha blinks for a moment. "Sorry, the Icelander did WHAT."

Emil laughs. "Yeah, Reynir. He was trying to see the world, apparently. It didn't work out too well for him."

"Is he the one that died?" Gus asks, blunt, and Lars and Agnetha hush him loudly a moment too late. 

Emil's face closes, sort of, then he says. "No. That was Turri. She was our mechanic, and some extra. She wasn't immune, and something broke into the vehicle during a fight and. Well." 

There is silence for a moment, the chatter of the room seeming far too loud. 

Then- "Sorry," says Gus. "My condolences?"

"You've never been sorry for anything a day in your life Gus," Agnetha says, smacking him on the arm. 

Gus shrugs. This is a fair assessment, and he doesn't intend to change his character now. 

"So," says Lars, valiantly trying to distract his crew. "We should go over the schedule for the month!" 

"We should!' says Emil. "It's been a while since I exploded anything. Well, there was a house, but I wasn't actually the one who set that explosion off."

"Wait," says Agnetha, "someone blew up a house and it wasn't you?" 

Emils grins. "It was AMAZING. This was my friend, Lalli, who's this scrawny Finnish scout who doesn't speak a lick of Swedish, and we're being stalked by these creepy little dusklings, and I've made peace with my inevitable and excruciatingly painful death and then he just- drags us out a window, blows up a house, and saves our butts like he always does. He didn't even use any magic to do it, that time, he just grabbed my explosives and-" 

"Uh huh, yeah, hang on," says Gus. "Emil, you do realize that magic isn't real? And that anyone who says it is is delusional?"

"Yeah, that," Agnetha says. 

"I have spreadsheets we can look at!" says Lars, with a touch of a manic grin. "They're color coded!"

Emil frowns, ignoring him. "Magic saved my life several times. I know where you're coming from, but when someone _blasts a giant to smithereens with his mind_ to save both your lives and nearly kills himself doing it, you kind of start rethinking your assumptions."

"It was probably just explosives, Emil, you know how those people like to-"

"What do you mean you nearly got eaten by a giant- you LEAD with that sort thing! You don't just 'oh it was eventful' us, you say HEY I NEARLY GOT EATEN AND ALSO FOUND WEIRD RELIGION I GUESS!"

"I didn't find religion," Emil huffs with a scowl. "I just admit that magic exists, which it does, because my friend used it to save my life. We also had an Icelandic mage who set trolls on fire with runes, I'm pretty sure, and-"

Gus leans forward with a shit-eating grin. "They totally could have snuck some out and set something up ahead of time. They probably just wanted to be dramatic. I bet they were planning that this whole time, and they just-"

"Isn't their magic just an excuse to blame things on their gods?" Agnetha is _definitely_ just fucking with Emil at this point. It's been too long, and this was always the funnest pastime of the group. "Sounds like religion to me. It's okay Emil I accept you and your weird hippie religion, just don't expect me to join in- I don't want to get any blood on my clothes, you know, the stains are so hard to get out."

Emil's face is working up to bright pink now, he looks like he's about to absolutely loose it, and Agnetha is SO ready... and then Emil takes a deep breath and _calms himself down._

This is new. 

Agnetha stares. Gus gapes a little bit, and Lars has long since put his head down on the table and appears to have given up on life. 

Emil looks around for a moment, watching other groups of cleansers go over their schedules together. Then he shrugs. 

"Maybe you'll get to meet Lalli at some point. He's the mage, and he definitely won't do any magic for you, but he's still pretty great." Emil smirks, hair glistening in the light. "Honestly, he wouldn't give a shit whether you believed he had magic. He didn't with me, right up until he used it to save my life." 

Agnetha nods, still not entirely sure what is happening. "Okay. Fair enough." She looks down at Lars on the table. "Shall we-"

Lars sits bolt upright. "Are we ready to go over the schedule? Finally?"

Scowling, Gus mutters, "Sure, whatever, I guess." 

"We really should have a mage or two on staff," Emil muses. "It'd be super helpful for a lot of things, probably."

"Take it up with the management," says Lars. "When you can find a mage willing to come out here, you can probably drag them along with us, but until then we REALLY need to sign our informed consent forms so our families can't complain too much if we die, we're so late, we've got to get through so much, our boss is gonna KILL me...."

\------

Lalli shows up a handful of weeks later. 

He's every bit as useful as Emil predicted.


End file.
